“Already forgotten.”
“Yay, you’re the best.” She drew back. “Thank you. For everything.”
“Anything for you, Angelina.”
A big smile brightened her face. “Um…about Leo?” she asked on her way out.
“I’ll arrange for a meeting after his initiation.”
“Initiation?”
“It’s a family thing.”
“Oh, I get it. So is he…um…gonna become like you one day?”
“That’s the plan.”
“I thought he was studying Economics.” She chuckled.
“He changed his mind.”
“I see.” She waved awkwardly and opened the door to leave.
“Angelina.”
“Yes?”
“If Leo hadn’t been engaged and hadn’t been stalking you, would you have dated him? Would you date a made man? The heir to the Bellomo kingdom, knowing what it is now?”
Her throat bobbed with a swallow. “That’s a tough question to answer.”
I grunted. Not what I expected. Not what I hoped for.I’ll have to make her find the right answer, the only answer, at that fucking meeting.
Chapter25
Lina
It’d been three weeks since I’d lived here and I hadn’t tried the pool once. Nicky used it and the gym on the roof almost every day. She worked so hard on her body, just like she worked so hard for everything, and she had no problem showing it. I, on the other hand, had become more self-conscious. I was surrounded by perfect bodies all day. Nicky’s, the bodyguards’, Tino’s…
The man of the house was rippling with muscles. If I thought he was hot the day I saw him without his shirt, well, watching him coming out of the pool, water dripping from his dark, sexy curls onto his tall, broad, sculpted body, while his swim trunks stretched over his…package was a whole different story.
Wrong and fucked up as it might have been, I’d touched myself that day, thinking of Tino for the first time, nothim.
The star of my continuous wet dreams had morphed into my new protector. The dangerous almighty Mafia boss who had kept the monster away.
For now.
The man I saw in my dreams had Tino’s face, body, scent and now accent. He no longer spoke or behaved likehim. He was all Tino with his sweet touch and warm embraces, always looking at me with his deep blue eyes that promised care and protection.
Except that he called me his sweet Angel.
A troubled sigh blew out of my chest as I sat in the greenhouse, my favorite place in the mansion where I could be by myself and practice without disturbing anyone. Tino kept saying he’d findhim, but I’d lost hope. I thought I’d provokedhimenough to show up. To make a fucking move. To stop abandoning me. To pay for whathehad done to me. But again,heproved to me I was nothing but a toyheplayed with only whenhewanted wheneverhedesired howeverhepleased.
Hedidn’t snap or lose it for not being able to watch or see me.Hewasn’t going to go crazy and make that mistake I thought passion and obsession would drivehimto make.Hewasn’t coming. Why risk anything for me? I meant absolutely nothing tohim.
I’d come to terms that I didn’t needhimto come back so I could heal. The void in my chest because I fucking missedhimso much had shrunk. Even the need to seehimpunished had faded or just smothered under the beautiful distraction named Tino Bellomo.
Whenhestopped calling me my sweet Angel in my dreams, I’d know I was healed. Only then I could move on and puthimbehind me. Only then I could livemylife, not the onehepainted for me. Whether Tino kept his promise and foundhimsoon or not.
